


The Best Medicine In Space

by bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kolivan and Thace are Concerned™, Sharing Body Heat, Sick Fic, Sick Keith (Voltron), The rest of Team Voltron appears briefly as well, Vomiting, Whump, can be read as platonic or shippy or polyshippy take ur pick, he's just got the flu tho so it's like... little whump, oh no... Keith is cold... Kolivan what u gonna do about that..., some general description of it but not too detailed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 15:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies/pseuds/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies
Summary: “Sorry,” Keith sighed, pushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead.  “I woke up feeling sick this morning, and I thought I could power through it, but I guess it got worse.”The Blades exchanged confused looks.  “Sick?”“Yeah.  Sick, you know, ill.  Unwell.  The opposite of a healthy state.”  Keith looked around at all of them, taking in their puzzled looks.  “When there’s, like, a foreign virus or bacteria that gets into the body and attacks the immune system, and the body has to fight it off.”Confused and awed murmuring broke out among the Blades, who wondered aloud if this was true.“This has been known to happen to certain species of aliens.”  Ulaz said slowly.  “But Galra do not ‘get sick’.”“Well, humans do.”  Keith said.  “Guess I didn’t inherit a Galra immune system.”  He broke off to cough a few times into the crook of his arm.(After Keith collapses in the middle of sparring, the Blades learn that humans can get sick and what that means.  Taking care of their sick youngest member brings out some of the Blades' protective sides.)





	The Best Medicine In Space

**Author's Note:**

> Part of this was inspired by [this lovely art](https://gold-leeaf.tumblr.com/post/167115202895/dracosh50-a-little-thing-ive-done-for).

Blades, as a general rule, did not kill each other.  They prefered stealth and infiltration to engaging with the enemy, but they would not hesitate to kill an enemy if the safety of the mission depended on it, of course.  There had been one incident in the past where a spy attempted to infiltrate their ranks, but he didn’t last through the Trials of Marmora, so they didn’t count killing him as killing one of their own.  Everyone who joined the Blade had something -- families, friends, loved ones, even entire planets -- ripped away from them by death, so it was not something they took lightly.  Once you passed the Trials and were in the organization, you were family.  The Blade was built on secrecy, yes, but with it, trust and brotherhood.  Blades did not kill or intentionally harm each other.  They sparred and trained together, of course, but they used blunted practice weapons instead of real ones, as getting injured would prevent them from going on missions and might leave them short-handed in the event of an emergency.  The practice knives and swords wouldn’t cut, only leave aching bruises, but injuries were seldom serious.  They weren’t actually in much danger of killing each other in training, for the most part.  

Keith wished they would kill him, right now.  

He had been fine, until this morning.  A little run-down, and very tired, but he figured that was because he was extraordinarily busy, between his Voltron duties and his training with the Blades.  Leaving the Black Lion to Shiro and going to stay with the Blade of Marmora full-time hadn’t even made him  _ less  _ busy, it had just given him a little room to breathe.  So he should have been fine.  But then, this morning, he had woken up feeling like death warmed over.  His muscles ached, arms and legs feeling heavy and slow, and he had that skin-sore feeling that he knew meant he had a fever, even though he felt chilly.  His head was pounding and he felt groggy, like someone in his head was drunkenly swinging a pick-axe around in the fog and striking the inside of his skull.  He couldn’t breathe through his stuffed up nose, and every time he coughed, it was torture on his parched, sore throat.  All he wanted to do was stagger back to his sleeping quarters, burrow under his covers, and sleep for a minimum of ten years.  What he was stuck doing, however, was sparring while he already felt dead on his feet, hoping someone would just put him out of his misery already.  

He swung at Regris, but his movements were too slow and the Galra easily side-stepped him.  A hard tap of the blunted sword between his shoulder blades made him stumble forward, but he caught himself before he managed to fall flat on his face.  Just barely.  

“You left yourself exposed to a counter-strike.”  Regris told him, but his voice sounded like it was coming from very far away.  Keith blinked slowly, feeling off-balance.  Regris lifted his sword, looking ready to strike, and Keith knew he was supposed to move… he was going to get hit, he should move…  he needed to... 

Regris paused, brow furrowing in confusion.  “Keith?”  Why did Regris sound like he was underwater?  Was there something wrong with the gravity generator?  Everything was spinning and sliding sideways…  

Keith wasn’t sure what happened.  One moment, he was upright and thinking he needed to block Regris’s next attack, and the next, he was looking up at the training hall ceiling with several confused Blades peering down at him.  He pushed himself upright, wondering how he had ended up on his back.  “What… what happened?”  His voice sounded terrible, and it felt even worse.  

“You suddenly collapsed.”  Kolivan told him.  “Regris didn’t even hit you.”  

So he fainted.  Fantastic.  

“...Sorry.”  Keith got to his feet, muscles aching in protest.  Fringes of black and gray started creeping in on the edges of his vision and he froze as everything went spotty.

“There!”  He could dimly hear Regris hiss to the others over the high-pitched ringing that filled his ears.  “That’s the look he had right before he collapsed.”

“I need to sit down…” Keith felt like he was speaking around cotton.  His vision was completely mottled black and gray and red, now, and he couldn’t hear anything over the ringing.  He was distantly aware of a hand around his arm, and then the floor was under him.   _ Head below your heart, head below your heart,  _ he remembered, so he felt his way to the floor and pressed his forehead to it, taking deep breaths.  

After what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, the ringing faded and the spots cleared from his vision.  He pushed himself up slowly, staying on all fours for a moment before sitting back.  The other Blades were watching him warily, as if they weren’t certain what he was doing or what they should do with him.  

“Sorry,” he sighed, pushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead.  “I woke up feeling sick this morning, and I thought I could power through it, but I guess it got worse.”

The Blades exchanged confused looks.  “Sick?”

“Yeah.  Sick, you know, ill.  Unwell.  The opposite of a healthy state.”  Keith looked around at all of them, taking in their puzzled looks.  “When there’s, like, a foreign virus or bacteria that gets into the body and attacks the immune system, and the body has to fight it off.”

Confused and awed murmuring broke out among the Blades, who wondered aloud if this was true.  

“This has been known to happen to certain species of aliens.”  Ulaz said slowly.  “But Galra do not ‘get sick’.”

“Well, humans do.”  Keith said.  “Guess I didn’t inherit a Galra immune system.”  He broke off to cough a few times into the crook of his arm.  

“What should we do?”  Thace asked.  

“Honestly?  I should probably call the castle-ship.  Talk to Coran or Hunk or someone.”  Keith sighed.  “I don’t know how to treat myself in space, and I’m guessing you guys don’t have any ideas either.”  It seemed a safe assumption, given that they didn’t even know what an illness was.  

Kolivan nodded.  “We’ll go to the communications room.  The rest of you, keep sparring.”  

“Keith, can you stand?”  Thace asked him.  

Keith nodded.  “Slowly.  I got up too fast before, and that’s why I almost passed out again.”  

Thace helped him to his feet, then the two of them followed Kolivan to the communications room on the base.  The Blade leader opened up a hailing frequency between them and the Altean castle-ship, and the line rang for a couple of minutes before the image of Pidge’s face appeared on the screen.  

“Hey, Pidge.”  Keith croaked, lifting his hand in a wave.  

“You look like crap.”  Pidge informed him.  Her words had her usual bluntness, but he knew her well enough to know she didn’t mean it unkindly.  

“I feel like it too.”  Keith would have chuckled, but he was too tired.  

“Oh.  Sorry.”  Pidge’s brow furrowed as she peered at the screen.  “Wait, you’re sick?”

“Yeah.”  Keith nodded.  “Must have caught some kind of space bug or something.”  He broke off as another fit of coughing overtook him.  He swallowed thickly when he finished, throat unbelievably sore.  “Can you get Coran or someone?”

“Yeah, one sec,” Pidge left, and they were left looking at the corner of her lab.  There was some kind of half-dismantled robot off to the side, and they could see a stack of tech bits and space-coffee cups on the desk.  

A few minutes later, they heard the soft beep and rush of air of a door opening off to the side of the screen, and Lance came sliding into view and plopped himself in Pidge’s chair.  “So, even the great, Mister-perfect-pilot, Keith the infallible can get sick.  How does it feel to be like the rest of us mere mortals?”  He crossed his arms and leaned back, smirking at the camera.

“Like shit.”  Keith said bluntly.  “And I wanted Coran, not you.”  

“He’s coming.”  Lance told him.  “And I’ve got plenty of experience taking care of my nieces and nephews when they get sick.  I know what I’m doing.”  

“Keith?”  Shiro’s voice came from off-screen a moment before he appeared, frowning in concern.  “Pidge said you were sick?”

“I am.”  Keith nodded.  “Feels like the flu.”  

“Keith is sick?”  Hunk asked, poking his head into view.  

“Look, I didn’t want this to be a big deal or anything…” Keith broke off as another coughing fit overtook him.  When he spoke next, his voice was ragged.  “I just wanted to talk to Coran real quick--”

“I’m here!”  Coran came into view too, Allura settling on the other side of the group.  The six of them were all crowded around the desk, peering at the communication screen.  “I heard you’re sick.”

“Yeah.”  Keith nodded.  “I felt kind of off all yesterday, and woke up this morning feeling like crap.  I ache all over, have a cough, my throat is sore, I’m pretty sure I have a fever, and I passed out in the middle of sparring.”

“You  _ fainted _ ?”  Lance looked gleeful.  Hunk elbowed him sharply.

Shiro frowned.  “You knew you were sick and you were training anyway?”

“I thought it was just a cold.”  Keith defended.  It sounded weak even to him.

“You still should have taken it easy.”  Allura told him.  “Even a cold can become worse quickly.”

“What’s your temperature?”  Coran asked.  

Keith felt his forehead with the palm of his hand.  “Hot.”  

“You can’t do it on yourself.”  Hunk said.  “Kolivan, did you take his temperature?”

“His what?”  The Blade leader frowned in confusion.

“Galra don’t get sick, apparently.”  Keith told the team, then turned to Kolivan.  “He means body temperature, which goes abnormally low or high when you get sick.”  

Kolivan placed his palm on Keith’s forehead, as he had seen him do.  “...I don’t know what humans normally feel like.”  He admitted.  “But he feels quite hot, and is perspiring.”

“‘Hot’ is a feeling, not a specific temperature.”  Coran reminded them patiently.  “Do you have a thermometer on your ship?  Anything that can be used to measure the temperature of something?”

Kolivan and Thace shared a look, both of them silent for a moment as they thought about it.  “We have a meat thermometer in the kitchen.”  Thace said.  “I’ll go get it.”  

“That’ll do, I suppose.”  Coran said, while Lance hid a giggle behind his hand.  

While Thace left, Coran grilled Keith about his symptoms in more detail, even having him open his mouth and shine a light on the back of his throat while leaning close to the camera so he could see it.

“That’s an image I really don’t want blown up to the size of a big-screen TV.”  Lance made a face.  Keith shot him a glare but refrained from speaking, as Coran and Hunk  were both peering closely at the screen.  

“Well, no white or red dots or marks, so it doesn’t look like strep throat…” Hunk said.  “My best guess would be the flu.”  

“And it’s certainly not the  _ neuotniiesnikuuykasner  _ virus, or you would have green and blue protruding horns on the back of your throat.”  Coran added.  

“I am eighty-five percent sure humans can’t get that.”  Pidge said.  

“Only eighty-five?”  Lance looked at her.

“There’s a chance we might be able to contract it even if we have never heard of it.”  Pidge shrugged.  “Like smallpox in the Americas.”

“In which case, an unknown virus might be extremely dangerous to humans.”  Shiro added, looking worried.  

“But Coran is right, it doesn’t look like that at all.”  Allura said.  “That’s an Altean disease; it could be limited to only Alteans, like the slipperies.”  

“Oh!  You said you were perspiring.  How much?”  Coran asked.  “There’s no shame in a young person getting it, you know… After all,  _ I _ did--”

“It’s not the slipperies.”  Keith made a face as he remembered that incident.  

By that time, Thace had returned with a long, pointed metal stick with an electronic gauge on one end.  He handed it to Keith, uncertain what the human intended to do with it.  Keith promptly stuck the end of it in his mouth, under his tongue.  Both Blades immediately let out choked, startled sounds and reached for him in concern, their eyes wide with shock.  

“Goodness, Keith, why would you put that in your mouth?”  Thace asked, laying a hand on his shoulder while Kolivan carefully pried it out of his mouth.

“No, no, he needs to put it in his mouth.”  Coran said.  “That’s how you get a temperature reading.”

“Or under the armpit, but that isn’t as accurate.”  Hunk added.   

“ _ Or  _ he could put it up his--”

“ _ Lance _ .”  Shiro cut him off with a pointed look.  Keith was grateful for the interruption, as he really did not want to have to explain that one to Kolivan and Thace.  

He put the tip of the thermometer under his tongue, careful of the sharp point, and waited.  The two Blades shifted, crossing their arms and frowning at the thermometer uncertainly.  

“It might take a while.”  Coran admitted.  “I’ve never used a meat thermometer on a person.”

“I mean, technically, we are made of meat…” Hunk hedged.  “So it should be similar, at least.”  

After a few more minutes, Kolivan looked at the gauge on top.  “The numbers have stopped rising.”  

“Then it’s probably done.”  Shiro said.  “What’s it say?”

“Three hundred and eighteen degrees.”  Kolivan read.

“ _ Fahrenheit _ ?!” Lance exclaimed, eyes widening.

“No, it’s probably the Intergalactic Standard Measurement Units.”  Hunk reached for a piece of paper and one of the many pens scattered on Pidge’s desk.  “So if you put it through this formula and divide that by…” He trailed off, biting his tongue as he quickly calculated it.  “That’s one hundred two point three degrees Fahrenheit.”  

“Quiznak, Keith…” Pidge sat back, crossing her arms.  “My mom took me to the  _ hospital  _ when I had a fever of one-oh-three.”

Kolivan and Thace exchanged a worried look.  “I’m not sure we can take him to a hospital… Health documents are difficult to forge, and he would need an entire undercover profile…” 

“We could find some civilian disguises.”  Kolivan mused.  “It would be little different than an undercover mission.”

“But Keith is wanted by Zarkon, even more so than the rest of us.  They would recognize his face in an instant.” Thace pointed out.  “And there’s no way to know if the hospital will contact the Empire… We might walk him straight into a trap.”

“I don’t need to go to the space hospital.”  Keith said quickly.  “It’s fine.  I just did a bad job taking care of it, so I’ll do better and get the fever down.  It’ll be fine.  It’s just the flu or something, not a big deal.”  

“The pods can heal injuries,” Shiro spoke up.  “Can they heal illnesses, too?”  

“I’m afraid not.”  Allura shook her head.  “And to my knowledge, the Blades don’t have cryo-pod technology.”

“We do not.”  Kolivan confirmed.

“Do any of you have any home remedies that might work?”  Keith asked.  “We don’t have any canned orange juice in space, so I can’t eat it.”

“Sprite, ginger ale, chicken noodle soup, chopped up ginger and honey in lemon tea…” Hunk ticked them off on his fingers, then paused.  “I’m sorry, did you say you  _ eat  _ orange juice when you’re sick?”

“Yeah?”  Keith didn’t see what was so odd about that.  “Just pop open the can and eat it frozen with a spoon.  Like sherbert.”  

“There is something fundamentally wrong with you.”  Lance made a face.  “Like, just as a person.”  

“It’s concentrated vitamin C!”  Keith defended.

“Okay, okay, back on topic.”  Shiro said.  “Unless anyone ate goo back on Earth and it somehow cured them of the flu, food-based remedies are going to be difficult to come by out here.”

“The best course of action would be to monitor your condition closely, and rest and try to recover.”  Coran said.  “Send periodic updates, and if it worsens… well, we might have to find the most peaceful quadrant we can and see about a hospital.”  

“But for now, stay away from training.”  Shiro told him.

“I thought a little light exercise was good for healing--”

“No.”  Pidge cut him off, pointing sternly at him.  “You.  Bed.  Now.”  

“...Yes ma’am.”  Keith mumbled, too tired to protest much.  

Hunk crossed his arms and leaned back a little, squinting at him suspiciously.  “I’m not sure I like sick Keith.  He doesn’t act like normal Keith.”

“Yeah, he’s weirder.”  Lance agreed.  “Get well soon, mullet.”  The other paladins piped up with variations of “get well soon!” and “take care!”

“Keep us updated.”  Shiro offered him a reassuring smile.  “Hope you feel better soon.”  

“Thanks.”  Keith muffled another cough in his hand.  The rest of Team Voltron waved, then Pidge cut the connection.  Keith turned off the screen.  

“So, if I am to understand it, you ought to be resting?”  Kolivan asked.  

“Yeah, and drinking plenty of fluids.”  Keith wrapped his arms around himself, shivering.  “I could use a blanket, too.”  

“But aren’t you hot?”  Thace asked, looking down at the thermometer in his hand.  

“My body is, but I also feel cold.”  Keith explained.  “That’s what a fever is.”  

“That sounds dreadful.”  Thace said.  

“It is.”  Keith nodded, accepting Kolivan’s proffered hand as he got to his feet.  

~~~~~~~

Ten minutes later, Keith was retreating into his room with as many spare blankets as Thace could scrounge up and two survival-kit-sized jugs of water.  Keith had laughed -- and then fell into another coughing fit -- and said he didn’t need to drink quite that much, but Kolivan filled them up and brought them to his room anyway, saying that it was better to be safe.

“Do you think he will really be alright?”  Thace asked quietly, looking back at Keith’s closed door as he and Kolivan walked away down the hall.  

“He is stronger than he looks.”  Kolivan said firmly.  “The human paladins did not seem overly alarmed, so I imagine he has it under control.”  

Still, though, he found himself checking on the youngest Blade throughout the day.  Most of the times he poked his head in the door, he found Keith asleep, tucked under a mound of blankets piled up on his bed.  Unfortunately, Kolivan was not quite well-enough versed in human facial expressions to tell if he was sleeping soundly.  Some sort of instinct told him Keith seemed a little restless or uneasy, but then again, he had also been wrong when he thought that Keith baring his teeth was indicative of aggression when in fact many times it was a human expression of joy called a ‘smile’... human facial expressions were complicated.  Maybe that’s just how he looked when he slept.  So he simply let him rest, and brought him a bowl of food at dinner time.  

After the evening debriefing had finished, Kolivan headed back to his room and sat down at the desk to sort through some reports from his agents in the field.  As he read about a new trade route opening in the Xarczywik system, though, he found himself focusing less on the words in front of him and more wondering if Keith was alright.  Should he check on him?  He had checked on him only a few hours ago before dinner, but what if he needed something?  No, surely he would be asleep at this hour… but then again, he had slept all day, so perhaps he might be awake now?  Did humans need to sleep more when they were ‘sick’?  Or what if they didn’t?  What if this was some sort of atypical abnormality that he should alert the other human paladins to?  They would have mentioned it… wouldn’t they?

Kolivan turned off his data-pad with a heavy sigh.  There was no harm in checking on him, surely.  He could just poke his head in, see how Keith was, and then get back to work, this time with his mind focused on the task at hand instead of fretting about his youngest Blade like a mother  _ aanugam _ with her cubs.  

He left his room and walked through the corridors of the base to where Keith’s room was located.  He knocked the back of his knuckles against the door.  “Keith?”  After receiving no response that his sharp ears could pick up, he eased the door open and peeked inside.  Kolivan squinted into the darkness of the room, but he didn’t see the head of sleep-tousled black hair tucked up into the blankets.  Perhaps he had truly burrowed his way underneath them this time.  Kolivan stepped inside the room and approached the bed.  He wouldn’t want Keith to accidentally suffocate himself under too many blankets.  “Keith, do you need anything?”  He asked, touching the lump of blankets.  There was no response.  He frowned and lifted up the corner of the blanket, only to find the bedsheets and blankets rumpled up underneath, as though they had been kicked hastily.  There was also no Keith to be found.  

Kolivan looked around the room, wondering where the young Blade had gone to.  He stepped out into the hall and looked up and down the dark dormitory corridor.  The door next to Keith’s opened and Regris poked his head out.  “Leader, are you looking for Keith?”  

“Has he left?”  Kolivan asked, puzzled.  

“He’s been in and out a couple of times tonight.”  Regris said.  “I think he said something about the toilets.  He sure can move fast when he wants to.”  

“He must be feeling better, if he’s moving around.”  Kolivan mused.  He thanked Regris, who retreated back into his room, then the Blade Leader headed down the hall to the communal bathrooms near the end of the corridor.  He would just check with Keith and confirm he was doing alright, then see the boy back to bed and return to his work.  

Just as he reached the bathrooms, Kolivan heard a horrible sort of wet hacking sound from within the room.  He frowned and opened the door cautiously.  Keith was kneeling on the floor in front of one of the toilets with his head bent over one.  A convulsion rocked through him and Kolivan heard that terrible sound again as something splattered into the basin.  “Keith?”  He closed the door behind him, trying to keep his alarm from showing on his face.  

Keith coughed and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth as he looked up.  Was Kolivan just imagining it, or did he seem paler than normal?  He knew humans weren’t purple, of course, but was it normal for them to look slightly green?  

“Oh, hey,” Keith’s voice sounded like a rusty metal blade sliding out of a corroded sheath.  

“What are you doing?”  Kolivan asked, still perplexed.  

Keith let out a heavy sigh and pushed his hand through his hair.  “Throwing up.  Vomiting.  It’s part of having the flu.  If there’s something bad in the body, the body tries to reject it, sometimes forcibly.”  He reached up and flushed the toilet.  

“Is this normal, for humans?”  Kolivan asked.  

“For healthy humans, no.”  Keith grunted, pushing himself up to his feet.  “For sick humans, yeah, it can be.  Depends on the illness.  Pretty common for the flu.  Still not a good thing.”  He staggered over to the sink and washed his hands, then bent down and cupped his hand to gather some water.  He swished it around in his mouth for a few moments, then spat it into the sink basin.  

“Should we alert the other human paladins?”  Kolivan asked.  He didn’t know how severe this was.  It  _ looked  _ severe, but he had been surprised by what Keith could handle before.  

“I’m fine.”  Keith turned off the faucet.  He certainly looked less green now, but he was still paler than Kolivan thought humans were supposed to be.  “It’s only happened a few times.”  

From Kolivan’s understanding, though, even ‘a few times’ was more than he should be.  And he recognized that look in Keith’s eyes.  It was a grim sort of determination, something many Blades displayed during times of hardship when they knew they had to keep soldiering on.  This time, the enemy wasn’t some Galra fighter or ro-beast, or even Zarkon himself, but rather something attacking his body from the inside.  There was nowhere Keith could retreat from this ‘illness’, no way to fight it but to wait it out.  Kolivan felt a surge of protectiveness for his youngest Blade and decided right then that he wouldn’t leave him to suffer alone.  

He caught Keith’s elbow as the boy tried to stagger past him on the way out the door.  “You are in no state to be left alone, not if you have had this ‘vomiting’ happen multiple times tonight.”  He told him.  “Come rest in my quarters, where I can keep an eye on you.”  

He could tell Keith was truly unwell, as he didn’t even protest.  The slump of his shoulders and heaviness of his sigh said more than he could with words and only reinforced Kolivan’s decision.  He let Keith take a few unsteady steps on his own, but some sort of protective instinct soon had him reaching out and picking the boy up like he might a young cub.  He cradled him close to his chest and set off down the hall to his room.  Keith coughed into his hand a few times, shoulders shaking with the motion.  “You don’t have to do this.”  He told him, voice a throaty croak.

“I must make sure no harm comes to you.”  Kolivan told him.  What if Keith collapsed as he had in training earlier, and struck his head in the fall?  “Your behavior worries me.”  

“I’m okay.”  Keith said weakly.

Kolivan spared him a dry look.  The boy was shivering despite his skin feeling as hot as a pure-blooded Galra’s, and he could scarcely walk in a straight line only a few minutes before.  “Are you, truly?”

Keith hesitated.  Kolivan could almost see the lie rise to his lips, ready to insist he was fine.  Keith sighed and closed his eyes, resting his hot cheek against the coolness of Kolivan’s armor.  “...Maybe not.”  

Kolivan shook his head fondly.  Stubborn cub.  He really didn’t know when to give up.

He brought Keith back to his sleeping quarters and laid him in his own bed.  He told him to make himself comfortable, then left him only to retrieve the half a dozen blankets from Keith’s room.  He thought Keith might want to make a nest with them, but he just laid them all on top of himself and tugged them up to his chin as he rested his head on the pillow, coughing quietly into his hand.  Perhaps that was a peculiarity of his human upbringing.  

“Let me know if you need anything.”  Kolivan reminded him, petting a hand over his hair.  “Anything at all.”

“Thanks…” Keith mumbled, already drifting off to sleep.  It seemed his trip to the bathrooms, even as short as it was, had exhausted him.  Kolivan tucked a lock of his hair back behind his ear -- still finding it odd that humans’ head-fur grew so long -- before he retreated back to his desk.  

~~~~~~~

Kolivan did manage to get a bit more work done, now that he was able to turn around and check on Keith at any given moment.  He managed to file two reports and decrypt some encoded data they had hacked from a Galra Balmera-mining operation.  Behind him, Keith snored softly, his nose a bit stuffed up.  Whenever Kolivan turned around to check on him, he seemed to be resting easily, but there were a few times when he would toss and turn and a quiet whimper would escape the back of his throat, brow furrowed above his closed eyes.  During those times, Kolivan would often find himself drawn to Keith’s side, laying a cool, damp cloth over his forehead -- as per Hunk’s instructions, not that Kolivan had taken advantage of the secure communications line with the Altean castle-ship to ask what he could do to help him, of course… -- and carefully brush his claws through Keith’s hair until he calmed again.  Only once he was sleeping soundly once more would he return to his work.  

Several vargas later, Kolivan heard a shifting behind him and a quiet grunt, and he saw Keith push himself upright in the reflection of his screen.  Keith looked around and let out a sigh, drawing one of the blankets tight around his shoulders.  “Kolivan?”  His voice sounded hoarse and scratchy, undoubtedly painful.  “Do we have any more blankets?”  

Kolivan turned around in his chair and considered him.  Keith’s shoulders were hunched where he sat up in bed, dark bags painted like bruises under his eyes.  Even under the weight of half a dozen blankets and quilts, he was still shivering.  They had more blankets on the base, and several other Blades would likely gladly offer up their own blankets for their brother-in-arms in need, but Kolivan doubted more layers would even make much difference.  He needed something different, something warmer.  It was hardly a secret that Keith, as part human, ran a bit colder than the rest of them, perhaps owing to his lack of fur.  He often felt cool when the other Blades touched him, and he had commented a few times on how they felt warm or even hot to him.  

Coming to a decision, Kolivan got to his feet and picked up his data-pad.  Keith blinked at him slowly in confusion as he crossed the room and took a seat on the bed.  Kolivan settled himself against the wall and lifted his arm.  “Here.  I am warmer than those blankets.”  

Keith stared at him for a few moments, and Kolivan wondered if he had gone too far and had crossed some sort of human social boundary.  But then Keith’s expression softened and his lips curved up in a smile -- this one easily recognizable to Kolivan as one of relief and happiness -- and he scooted closer, tucking himself under Kolivan’s proffered arm.  Kolivan rubbed his shoulder to warm him and settled another two blankets over their laps as Keith leaned into him and tucked his feet off to the side.  He pulled up his data-pad and the screen glowed to life in front of him for a moment before he turned down the brightness, not wanting to blind Keith or hurt his eyes.  Keith made himself comfortable at Kolivan’s side as the other Blade’s arm slipped around his waist to support him.

“Thank you,” Keith murmured quietly, already nodding off against his chest.  “For taking care of me, that is.”  

Kolivan curled his arm around his waist and leaned down to nuzzle the top of his head with his nose.  “Of course.  Now rest.”  

Keith hummed in acknowledgement and was asleep within moments, his slow, even breaths whistling just slightly due to his stuffed-up nose.  Kolivan pressed his lips to the top of Keith’s hair before turning back to his work.  

He finished up what he was working on, sent a couple of encrypted messages that couldn’t wait until morning, and then set the data-pad aside.  The rest of his work could wait until tomorrow, he decided.  Carefully, so as not to disturb the small Blade sleeping at his side, he laid him down with his head on the pillow and pulled the blankets up over both of them.  Keith snuggled closer to him in his sleep, letting out a sigh as Kolivan wrapped his arms around him to envelope him in as much warmth as possible.  He gently brushed his claws through Keith’s hair for a few minutes before he grew tired enough to join him in sleep.  

**Author's Note:**

> (BONUS: the next morning)  
> Kolivan, still in bed: “I’m taking a sick day. Antok will run training today.”  
> Thace: “Keith taking a sick day, I can understand. But you can’t get sick, Leader.”  
> Keith, wrapped up in Kolivan’s arms: “He’s my living space heater.”  
> Thace: “...Now that’s just not fair” 
> 
> I want you all to know that I got this idea very late at night when I was barely awake, but I knew I didn’t want to forget it so I pulled out my laptop and blindly typed “KOLRITH: KRRF GRTD SICK”, totally missing half the letters and somehow hitting the capslock button, then I woke up to just that phrase alone in a word document with no other explanation whatsoever. I had many questions the next morning.


End file.
